The Avengers Already Setting Box Office Records Overseas

Most of the Avengers are Americans. S.H.I.E.L.D. headquarters are located in the Southwest. The big climactic action scene in the movie The Avengers takes place in New York, America's greatest city (yeah, I said it!) And yet, Americans are the ones who will have to wait the longest to get a look at The Avengers, which opens here May 4 but is already playing overseas in Australia, France, The Philippines, and New Zealand, and is set to open even wider internationally on Friday. I'd say it's not fair, that Americans never get anything good at the movies, but that's not true and we both know it.

The good news is that our international moviegoing friends are treating The Avengers quite well-- the movie has earned $12.5 million already from the five countries listed above, and notched the second-highest opening ever in Australia with $6.2 million there alone. It's also way, way bigger there than any other superhero movie, including The Dark Knight (which opened at a pitiful $2.5 million) and even Iron Man ($1.8 million). And that's all on a Wednesday-- there's still an entire weekend at the box office left to go!

The Avengers opens in a whole lot of other places today, including relatively big markets like Germany and the UK, and it bows in India, Mexico, Brazil and many others on Friday. Joining the United States in the cruelly late release are Canada, Indonesia and Turkey among others, but we definitely don't have it as bad as Japan-- The Avengers doesn't open until August 17 there. But with so many international debuts happening, we'll already have a lot to say about The Avengers box office by the time it opens here-- and from the looks of things, it'll be a huge hit before a single American multiplex shows it.